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Back in the beginning of the year, I decided we'd dress up as Russell and Kevin from the movie Up for this run. Thanks to that DIY crack known as Pintrest, I was able to come up with some costume ideas that didn't require much effort or sewing.
We booked a room at Pop Century, got dolled up, and boarded to bus to Animal Kingdom around 8pm. The past 3 days had been dreary and raining with a front stalling out over Central Florida. When we got to the park, there was a steady drizzle welcoming us. We hung out under a shelter with the vending machines for a few minutes til it started to slack off. As we headed along with the rest of the herd over to the AK parking lot, we got soooo many compliments on the costumes! I knew we looked amazing, and I was a bit surprised at the lack of overall dressing up from the rest of the runners. I mean, compared to ToT and Princess, hardly anyone was in costume.
We joined the crowd in front of the DJ for some warm-up dancing. The drizzle was on and off for the next hour or so, but some careful footwork around the puddles allowed for minimal splashing. I don't care if I look like a big doofus while dancing but Scot's a lot more self-conscious. He did eventually start to loosen up a bit and I'm pretty sure he was having a good time, rain aside. We lined up a bit later in corral A (which was awesome because the wait times between corrals took forever!) and did some more dancing and cheering in the drizzle. Somewhere, a (soap) snow machine started up and it looked like a full-out blizzard. The countdown ended and all of a sudden, we were off! It started with a gentle jog around the parking lot, splashing through puddles the whole way. The first "obstacle" was a series of hay bales less than a mile in. We leaped over about 8 rows of them in the face of the Marathonfoto paparazzi that were camped out at the end. The course then took us through the park for a brief spell, then around and out the back down a service road. There wasn't as much music and entertainment as on the longer races, but there were some neat lights and a guy in a booth setting off fire balls. The next obstacle was a selection of tires to high-knee though. I swear I thought I was going to face plant and die right there, but again I made it though with minimal effort. The water stop came along at mile 2 after we popped back into the park. The time in was quick though, as we sailed back to the backstage area. The final obstacle was a crawl under a rope net, and although the rain had finally stopped, I was relieved there was astroturf underneath it, after all, everything was still really wet. Scot slithered under the net like he'd done it 100 times, I was a bit slower. My feather headband had been getting on my nerves the whole time and I'd finally just taken it off and tucked it into the waistband of my pants. The finish line was around the corner and we crossed it together at around the 26 minute mark. Impressive!
We were immediately handed bottles of water, our first clue, a map of AK, and a blue sharpie with a flashlight attached.
As you can see, we got the first clue wrong! It said to use the color of something you'd been given, and of course we'd just been given a BLUE sharpie. So we circled that one and ran to the clue station. I was stumped with we got a big DENIED by the woman managing the station. What else had we been given? We started looking at the AK map for colors but couldn't figure it out. This was not starting out well! The lady looked at us like we were dumb as rocks and told us to look at our bibs. Bibs? I looked down at my green race bib. Green? YES. Oh. Well, shit, I'd been given the race bib yesterday, that was long-forgotten. Ok, got Clue 2 and moving on!
Well damn. This one was hard too. We found the station for this one inside the park near Pizzafari and loitered around to listen to any hints the guide working it was giving out. We'd racked our brains thinking of prime numbers that were whole and odd, but didn't know what to do with them, or what the green flag was for. Again, the man there told us to find where numbers were spelled out in the clue from #1- the phrase "both reenergized" contains the hidden word "three" and the word "done" contains the word "done."
This? Is some bullshit.
The answer was... four. You add 3+1. Okay. Four. Now give us the next clue, idiot.
Clue #3!
Finally, an easy one. I figured this one out pretty quick- we use 2 As, one G, 2 Hs, and so on to fill in the blanks. "Things that keep up you warm." Got it.
Clue #4!
The next station attendant gave us this one that said to punch out all the items that apply to Clue #3. A scarf, mittens, fire, sleeping bag, boots, hot thermos. Now it's getting easy! Dash off to station number 5 for the last clue!
The answer from Clue #2... oh right, it was 4! We fiddled with our clue numbers til we found the one with the giant 4 on the back and took off toward the finish line. As we were running, we passed opposite the direction of people just starting the 5K part of the race! Yikes! We rounded the corner to the finish while holding up our #4 signs. We crossed the finish line with good times!
Scot: 63rd place in 49:31. 43rd individual male to finish out of around 6,000 participants.
Me: 62nd place in 49:30. 20th individual female to finish.
Overall, good times. After we got past the first 2 clues, of course! Since we finished so early we were able to get on some rides, we rode Everest twice in a row! After that, everything else that was open was in DinoLand USA. We headed out to the buses when the crowds started picking up around midnight. Check out our bling! The medal is pretty neat, it opens up into a compass
I enjoyed this race. It wasn't my favorite (not long enough for me, plus the Expo took place outside in the rain under like 3 puny little tents) but I'm glad Scot got to participate in a runDisney event. Might do it again next year, but we're going to have to study more, heh heh.
